Louth sees a fall in recorded drug offences
CSO Release: Recorded Crime Q3 2022
The Louth Garda Division has seen a fall in the number of recorded controlled drug offences in the year up to the second quarter (Q2) of 2022, according to figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) this week.
According to the latest figures, 634 controlled drug offences were recorded in the Louth Garda Division in the year to Q2 2022. This is a decrease of 236 recorded offences, representing a fall of 27.1% on the year to Q2 2021.
The decrease was seen in the four of the five types of controlled drug offences reported in the figures. Possession of drugs for personal use offences fell by 176 in the year to Q2 2022, representing a fall of 27.5%
Possession of drugs for sale or supply offences fell by 46 or 24.6%. Cultivation or manufacture of drugs offences in the Louth Garda Division fell from 19 in the year to Q2 2021, to five in the year to Q2 2022, representing a decrease of 73.7%.
Importation of drugs offences fell from two to one in the year to Q2 2022. The only category that saw an increase in Louth was the Other drug offences category, which increased from 22 in the year to Q2 2021 to 23 in 2022.
It is important to note that these statistics are categorised as Under Reservation by the CSO. This categorisation indicates that the quality of these statistics do not meet the standards required of official statistics published by the CSO.
The classification statistics Under Reservation has been applied to reflect the fact that there are data quality issues in the underlying sources used to compile these statistics. This approach of differentiating statistics based on quality concerns associated with the underlying data is consistent with other jurisdictions such as England and Wales.
In the case of Recorded Crime statistics, the new classification will actively alert users to the underlying quality deficiencies and inform them that further revisions can be expected as these deficiencies are resolved.
The decision to publish using the statistics Under Reservation category reflects concerns the CSO has around the completeness and accuracy of PULSE data. Data published under this category will provide users with the best information available while clearly identifying the quality issues and flagging where revisions are likely.